Candidate for Maine State Senate attacked over Warcraft character (Updated)

The game in Maine makes the GOP go insane.

The Republican Party of Maine has revealed that Democratic State Senate candidate Colleen Lachowicz has a secret life that she's been hiding from voters. Drug use? A Swiss bank account? No, sadly, even worse: she has a scary-looking World of Warcraft character.

"Colleen Lachowicz spends hundreds of hours playing in her online world Azeroth, as an Orc Assassination Rogue named Santiaga," reads a flyer sent to voters in the district. It's identified as funded by the Maine Republican Party.

"I love poisoning and stabbing! It is fun," the flyer quotes Lachowicz as saying. The candidate is apparently a regular commenter at DailyKos, a liberal blog. And the Maine GOP has mined the site looking for what it regards as damning comments. Most of Lachowicz's remarks were posted in 2009 or 2010, most likely before she began her current campaign for office.

"I can kill stuff without going to jail," she wrote in December 2009. "There are some days when this is more necessary than others." The flyer points voters to a website, called "Colleen's World," that highlights more cases where she describes virtual violence she committed in the online world.

Lachowicz uses salty language in some of the comments, but someone needs to sit the Maine GOP down and explain the difference between fantasy and reality. Every day, millions of people engage in simulated video game violence without committing any real-world violence. By suggesting a World of Warcraft hobby should disqualify someone for office—and implying that voters are too dumb to tell the difference between virtual and real violence—the party is only embarrassing itself.

Update: David Sorensen, a spokesman for the Maine GOP, stood by the flyer in an emailed comment: "Referring to herself as 'lazy' and writing about how she has been playing World of Warcraft all day and has gotten nothing done at work, combined with the number of hours most World of Warcraft gamers spend playing the game (22.7 per week, on average) and the number it must have taken her to reach such a high level - all raise questions about her work ethic and her ability to devote her time and energy to serving the people of Senate District 25 in a mature and effective manner."

It's worth noting that the average American watches more than 30 hours of television per week. Many other Americans spend their evenings and weekends at the golf course. Yet it's hard to imagine anyone suggesting that devoting 22 hours per week to those hobbies made a candidate too lazy to hold elected office.

I think it’s weird that I’m being targeted for playing online games. Apparently I’m in good company since there are 183 million other Americans who also enjoy online games. What’s next? Will I be ostracized for playing Angry Birds or Words with Friends? If so, guilty as charged!

What’s really weird is that the Republicans are going after my hobbies instead of talking about their record while they’ve been running Augusta for the last two years. Instead of talking about what they’re doing for Maine people, they’re making fun of me for playing video games. Did you know that more people over the age of 50 play video games than under the age of 18? As a gamer, I’m in good company with folks like Jodie Foster, Vin Diesel, Mike Myers, and Robin Williams. Maybe it’s the Republican Party that is out of touch.

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Timothy B. Lee
Timothy covers tech policy for Ars, with a particular focus on patent and copyright law, privacy, free speech, and open government. His writing has appeared in Slate, Reason, Wired, and the New York Times. Emailtimothy.lee@arstechnica.com//Twitter@binarybits

State and local politics are even dumber than national politics. This is middle-school-class-president level nonsense, seriously.

The general rule-of-thumb seems to be 'throw crap at the wall until it sticks.'

For you circle-jerkers readying your 'OMG REPUBLICANS SO DUM' comments, this kind of stupidity is not especially GOPish. This just have easily could have been the DNC, especially at the state or local level.

it's a cheap stunt. And its is cheap in cost too. If it turns off a few voters it may be enough to make a difference in a local election, in which case it might be cost effective too. Ultimately it is childish and the voter in Maine deserve better, but they also get what they deserve if this is what sways them

Oh man I wish I lived in this woman's district. This flyer was produced by the same party who is currently in control in both houses in the Maine state legislature... and recently voted into law a statute that makes it a crime to shop out of state and not pay Maine state sales tax.

You read it right, folks.... I just received my state sales tax reporting form in the mail, requiring me to file all of my purchases out of state that would have been taxed in Maine, then pay my 7% sales tax that is due. What's horrible about this? I live in a rural town, 1 mile from the NH border where there are lots of stores, like Walmart, Target, Home Depot... all a mere 5 miles from my home.

If I were to try shopping at these places in Maine, I'd have to drive more than twice as far. Now... according to the Maine GOP, I am a tax-evader and must pay taxes for all of those purchases. Now, who is the worse rogue?

I am finding it hard to grasp that the actual Republican Party of Maine would approve this. I would seriously question the people in the party who thought this would be a good idea. It makes me think of a political ad I saw here (Washington state) the other day with a bunch of old people in a diner complaining about the democrat running for governor. I thought the point of getting more votes was to defy the stereotypes that the undecided people think you are, not double down on it.

This just tells me they are going after people like my Aunt who have never played and will never understand online games. Given the demographics of the country (she's in her late 60's) this will probably work well.

Oh man I wish I lived in this woman's district. This flyer was produced by the same party who is currently in control in both houses in the Maine state legislature... and recently voted into law a statute that makes it a crime to shop out of state and not pay Maine state sales tax.

You read it right, folks.... I just received my state sales tax reporting form in the mail, requiring me to file all of my purchases out of state that would have been taxed in Maine, then pay my 7% sales tax that is due. What's horrible about this? I live in a rural town, 1 mile from the NH border where there are lots of stores, like Walmart, Target, Home Depot... all a mere 5 miles from my home.

If I were to try shopping at these places in Maine, I'd have to drive more than twice as far. Now... according to the Maine GOP, I am a tax-evader and must pay taxes for all of those purchases. Now, who is the worse rogue?

That's actually true in my state also, Washington. It's called a use tax. Since it's self reported it doesn't collect much revenue, but that doesn't mean you're not supposed to do it.

All I get from the linked picture is that the GOP wants a candidate who games less, but the rest of the article talks about the age-old implied link between game violence and reality. The linked flyer seems to be down now. I see no hypocrisy or baiting issues with them suggesting she plays too much for a potential senator. I might disagree with them, but I think it's a fair point.